


Catbread Roles

by der_tanzer



Series: Catbread [5]
Category: Riptide (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/pseuds/der_tanzer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Murray has a little accident. Will Quinlan find someone to blame?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catbread Roles

**Author's Note:**

> Someone remarked recently that the Catbread characters aged too soon and there should have been more early fic. So I magically went back in time and made some. (That's not mold, it's fur.)
> 
> Special thanks to Valis2 for the encouragement and the speedy beta.

“Just wait a minute,” Cody said impatiently and was immediately ashamed when Murray wilted. But even before Nick could climb out of the seat behind him, Murray was reaching for the door handle again.

“Damn it, Murray, _stop that_ ,” Nick ordered, hopping over the side of the Jimmy just in time to catch the edge of the door with his thigh. “Hey, ow.”

“Sorry,” Murray said and was still for a few seconds. It was just long enough for Nick to step around the door and push it the rest of the way open.

“Don’t apologize, Boz, just let us help,” Nick said a little more kindly. Cody came around from the other side, and the two of them wore him down with their concerned expressions.

“I’m sorry, I just feel so stupid,” Murray said, standing and hooking his arms around their shoulders. “I must fall down more than anyone in the world.”

“That’s possible,” Nick said unhelpfully. “But you gotta admit you don’t hurt yourself very often.”

Murray nodded faintly and they moved off toward the gangway, him hopping on one foot and his friends holding him steady, holding him up. But he was still doing most of the work and had to take a break at the top of the narrow ramp. It was exhausting holding his shoeless, bandaged foot off the ground, even with such strong men to lean on. Murray stared down at the Riptide and wondered what was going to happen when he was finally aboard. He was so uncoordinated with crutches that no one had even suggested trying them again.

He sighed without meaning to and missed the look his friends exchanged over his bowed head. Cody slipped away and took off toward the boat as Nick swept Murray off his one good foot and proceeded to carry him down to the dock and up the stairs to the rail. Cody was there to take his skinny body when Nick passed him over the rail, Murray scrambling to release one and grab the other, as if it were up to him.

“Easy, Boz. I’m not gonna let you fall,” Cody said, his mustache catching lightly in Murray’s hair.

“Sorry,” Murray said. He felt Cody’s chest hitch in a sigh, almost apologized again, and then laughed. His friends laughed with him and Cody carried him inside.

***

“No one was especially looking forward to telling you,” Nick said. He was angry and hiding it, striving to sound merely wry. “In fact, I’m still not sure it was a good idea.”

“Now you look here, Ryder,” Quinlan shot back. He wasn’t trying to hide anything. But before he could tell Nick where to look, Murray interrupted.

“Please don’t, Lieutenant. It’s my fault, I told them not to bother you at work. Come on, you just got here, you haven’t even sat down yet. Don’t fight, guys. Please?”

Quinlan was torn between the soft, beseeching words that made him want to comfort Murray, and the bandage on his ankle that made him want to hurt someone else. But the only people near enough to hurt were Murray’s friends.

He settled with giving Nick and Cody each a stern look—a look that said he would be counting toes and they’d better all be there—and then sat down on the bench. Murray stretched his legs across Quinlan’s lap and gave his friends a look of his own. They decided to be somewhere else and went there at once.

“Tell me the truth, kid. Are you really okay?” asked Quinlan, unwrapping the elastic bandage as a matter of course. He stripped off Murray’s socks and inspected the swollen ankle with gentle hands.

“It’s fine, Lieutenant, really.”

“As big as my thigh isn’t ‘fine’. Or _your_ thigh, even. So what happened?” He slouched down a little and began to massage Murray’s ankle, rubbing very tenderly with the tips of his fingers.

“We were looking for a stolen car. The owner hired us to get it back and—wait, let me start at the beginning.” 

“Not the beginning of time, I hope.”

“No, just the beginning of this story,” Murray said with heartbreaking cluelessness. At least Quinlan’s heart cracked a little. “The owner has to move a lot and she left her car with her ex-roommate last time because it broke down. But she owed the roommate a bunch of money—it was the roommate’s place—for back rent and pet damage and—”

“And you took this broad as a client?” Quinlan smirked, the affection that was missing from his voice coming clearly through his hands.

“She didn’t exactly tell us all this up front. The story that she started with was the roommate was a sponge who threw her out when she stopped lending her money and then stole her car.”

“These broads have names? I’m getting confused.”

“Angela is—was—our client. Cheryl owns the house. Anyway, Angela told us where to find the car and we went to get it, but when Cheryl caught us poking around she came storming out yelling at us and her dogs got loose. We got chased all the way across the street by a pack of Boston and Jack Russell terriers. They were so _adorable_ , Lieutenant, you wouldn’t believe it, but I stepped on a rock in the neighbors’ yard and twisted my ankle.”

“Lemme see your hands,” Quinlan ordered, putting down Murray’s foot. Obediently, he held out his hands, palms up, exposing a few scratches on the heels. “Jesus, kid. Bostons?”

“You weren’t there. We were completely surrounded and we had to get out of the street. Anyway, Cheryl showed us the paper Angela signed giving her the car in exchange for the back rent and damages. It turned out Angela told her she couldn’t find the title but she really had it all along so she could get someone to steal the car back for her after Cheryl got it fixed. We _did_ get paid for the three hours we spent straightening it out because Nick threatened to call you about the car theft scam—pretend you didn’t hear that—but since I had to go to the doctor and now I can’t work for a while, it doesn’t really matter. Anyway, that’s what happened. No big deal.”

“Have I got this straight? You went to steal a car that your client had given away, and a pack of tiny dogs chased you onto someone’s lawn where you stepped on a rock and fell down. Is that it?”

“Are you mad?” Murray asked and Quinlan burst out laughing. It was so absurd—this long, lanky man and his huge friends being chased around until they hurt themselves by a pack of dogs no bigger than their own hands—that Quinlan laughed until Nick and Cody crept up from the bow to check on him. 

Still laughing, he narrowed his eyes into such a hideous expression that they went right back where they came from. Which happened to be the galley, where they were cooking a get well dinner for Murray with a chocolate don’t-kill-us cake for Quinlan, but he didn’t know that yet.

“No, kiddo, I’m not mad. Wish you’d be more careful, but you didn’t do anything wrong.” He leaned down and kissed Murray softly, just now realizing that in his first fear he had asked questions when he should have said hello. 

Murray folded his arms behind his head as Quinlan straightened up and resumed massaging his sore ankle. But after a moment he left off ministering to the injury and began rubbing Murray’s angular, bony foot instead. Murray might never know this—Quinlan was oddly shamed by it and hoped to never tell—but he had always been something of a foot man and Murray had the nicest he’d ever seen.

His strong fingers pressed into the arch of Murray’s foot, earning a small gasp of real pleasure before traveling to the ball and working with gentle firmness around the base of his toes. Murray flexed and moaned, wincing just a little when he moved his ankle wrong. Quinlan set it down on his lap with a parting caress and took up Murray’s other foot, dug in firmly, made him groan.

“Oh, that’s nice, Lieutenant, but you don’t have to,” he sighed, concern warring with pleasure on his tired face. “It’s not hurt or anything.”

“Am I hurting you now?” Quinlan asked dryly. 

“No, it feels wonderful.”

“Then shut up.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

Quinlan flashed him a sharp look, saw his eyes closed in pure bliss, and said nothing. So far as he was concerned Murray deserved all the thanks. For being alive and safe, for being his man, and for always letting Quinlan have his way, even with his feet.


End file.
